Debut novel about a doomed love affair that’s carried on across several continents and for more than 50 rather weepy years. Like most small-town journalists, Abby Reston is dying for a decent story. An editor for a little newspaper in upstate New York, she is about to despair of anything ever happening in Longwood Falls when an elderly gent steps into her office and introduces himself as Martin Rayfiel. The scion of a rich local family, Martin grew up in Longwood Falls but has lived abroad for decades, and he explains to Abby that he has returned home once a year since 1949 to meet with an old flame at the gazebo in the town square. This year will mark their 50th such anniversary, should Abby wish to cover it for the paper. She wants to, of course, but when she shows up at the appointed time she finds only a leather briefcase. Inside it, though, is her story. Martin, apparently, fell in love with Clair Swift while the two were still teenagers. Clair was a poor girl whose father worked as janitor at the Rayfiels” country club, and neither the Swifts nor the Rayfiels approved of the match. So Martin and she fled to Europe, living off the proceeds of a family heirloom that Martin had sold behind his parents” back. Finding this out, the Rayfiels promptly cut him off without a penny, and he took work as a cook to support himself and his lover. Just as he began to succeed as a chef at an expensive London restaurant, however, Clair went home to see her dying mother—and never returned. She married a kindly, dull carpenter and settled down in Longwood Falls; Martin married a rich, dull widow and prospered in London. Once a year, though, for a single day, he and Clair met and remembered their youthful love—until Clair died of cancer in 1998. A Harlequin Romance in hardcover. (Film rights to Columbia-TriStar)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16753-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Not Woods’ best, but a smoothly written, beach-themed story with a happy ending helps forgive the weaknesses.
When Samantha, an established-yet-struggling actress, comes home to act as maid-of-honor in her sister’s wedding, the family unabashedly tries to pair her with the best man, Ethan, her teenage crush and now a local war hero.
Samantha is the oldest Castle, and while her two sisters found true love in quick succession, she’s in New York with a struggling acting career and no Mr. Right on the horizon. Coming home to Sand Castle Bay, N.C., for youngest sister Emily’s wedding, Samantha is continually thrown in the path of Ethan Cole, local football champion–turned–war hero. Samantha had a huge high school crush on Ethan but is surprised to learn he lost a leg in Afghanistan, and his then-fiancee abandoned him soon after. Spending time with him now, Samantha realizes what a wonderful man he is, but the association is tainted by the humiliating lengths her family is going to in order to get them together. And while Ethan is a great and honorable man, his post-war romantic experience has left him gun-shy and determined to avoid relationships. At a crossroads in her own life, Samantha has to decide whether she’s going to stay in Sand Castle Bay or go back to her sputtering career in New York—and what her hopes are with Ethan. The two navigate insecurities and misunderstandings as they fall in love and fight for their happily-ever-after. Woods' latest is slightly off-key. Great writing and deft characterization can’t save a thin romantic conflict, and the more Ethan clings to his “I’ve given up on love” position, the less heroic he becomes. Some secondary storylines offer similarly shrill undertones that denote a disturbing lack of communication, unrealistic expectations and waffling with annoying justification. Still, in the end, love conquers all in satisfying ways for everyone concerned, and this ties up a few loose ends for the trilogy.
Not Woods’ best, but a smoothly written, beach-themed story with a happy ending helps forgive the weaknesses.Pub Date: May 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1446-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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